hostile to the aristocracy; and as this source of discontent and
distrust is likely to increase every year, the sooner the settlement
is effected the better. What is the use of scolding and reviling the
tenant's advocates? Will that weaken one iota the tremendous force of
social discontent--the bitter sense of legal injustice, with which
the legislature must deal? And will the legislature deal with it more
effectually by shutting its eyes to facts?




CHAPTER XXI.

FARNEY--MR. TRENCH'S 'REALITIES.'


When the six Ulster counties were confiscated, and the natives were
all deprived of their rights in the soil, the people of the county
Cavan resolved to appeal for justice to the English courts in Dublin.
The Crown was defended by Sir John Davis. He argued that the Irish
could have no legal rights, no property in the land, because they did
not enclose it with fences, or plant orchards. True, they had boundary
marks for their tillage ground; but they followed the Eastern custom
in not building ditches or walls around their farms. They did not
plant orchards, because they had too many trees already that grew
without planting. The woods were common property, and the apples,
if they had any, would be common property too, like the nuts and the
acorns.

The Irish were obliged to submit to the terms imposed by the